2013 Joe Shuster Award nominees announced

The nominees for the 2013 Joe Shuster Awards were announced late last night, and it’s quite a list. The nominees cover a wide variety of material and genres. Feel free to make your selections in the comments.

The “separate retailer award committee” mentioned for The Harry Kremer Award consists of Anthony Falcone and myself, so look for insights into that process in the coming weeks here at Comic Book Daily. On to the announcement.

Nominees were selected this spring from lists of creators including all eligible original works published and distributed during the year 2012. Qualifying creators must be Canadian citizens living at home or abroad, as well as permanent residents in Canada. The award winners will be chosen by a jury vote to ensure every nominee is given adequate consideration.

The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony in Toronto, open to the public, on the evening of Saturday, August 25, 2013. Time and exact location will be announced at a later date.

This award recognizes the works which capture the attention and fascination of youngreaders, and help to create a passion for life-long reading. Works considered for this award are comic books and graphic novels by Canadian creators that are targeted at readers 14 and under. Nominees for this award are selected from the eligible creators lists by a team of educators led by Jennifer Haines, MA, B.Ed., who is also the proprietor of Guelph, Ontario’s The Dragon comic book shop.

A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse! (Toon Books) – Frank Viva (Cartoonist /Auteur)

Gene Day Award (Self-Publishers) / Prix Gene Day (Auto-éditeurs)

Named after the late Howard Eugene Day (1951-1982), this awardhonours Canadian comic book creators or creative teams who self-published their work but did not have the books distributed by a third party such as Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. The nominees were selected from over 40 individual publications submitted for review before the deadline of May 16th, 2013. The award winner will also receive a bursary of $500.

Sanya Anwar – 1001

Jordyn F. Bochon – The Terrible Death of Finnegan Strappe: The Claw of the Earth #1 (of 3)

Antonin Buisson – Tranquillement pas vite

James Edward Clark – Evil

Corey McCallum, Matthew Daley – The Pig Sleep: A Mr. Monitor Case

Harry Kremer Award (Retailers) / Prix Harry Kremer (Détaillants)

Named after the late Harry Kremer, original owner of Now & Then Books (in Kitchener, Ontario). The CCBCAA maintains a list of active comic book stores and a database of recommendations, referrals and secret shopper reports. A separate Retailer Award Committee reviews the data and selects a short list of stores that have shown merit in a variety of categories such as:

Vernon Miller (1912-1974) Co-founder of British Columbia’s Maple Leaf Publishing in 1941, one of the four principal publishers of comic books in Canada during World War 2 and the years shortly after under the protection of the War Exchange Conservation Act. Maple Leaf’s first foray into publishing, Better Comics #1 (March 1941) is generally agreed as first original Canadian comic book because it featured new material almost exclusively created by Miller. Better Comics #1 was also the debut of Miller’s original superhero, the first Canadian superhero — The Iron Man (in full colour! Predating Marvel’s similarly named character by 22 years). Better Comics also included Earth Torpedo, Tiger Tex the Cowboy Detective, Roaring Rails, and The Hidden Passage with illustrator F.P. Thursby. Miller, who addressed his young readers as “Uncle Verne”, also produced Mystery Mountain for Rocket Comics. Miller went on to a career as a cartoonist for Vancouver newspapers, and also did illustrations for Canadian Boy Magazine in the 1960s.

Murray Karn (1924-) Karn worked primarily for Bell Features (ON) in the 1940s, working on titles such as Active Comics and Wow Comics illustrating strips such as Thunderfist (aka Randy Steele) and Jeff Waring as well as some narrative short features for many of the different Bell titles. Karn also produced covers for Bell, most notably on early Active Comics. Karn’s precise line work and illustrative quality gave his strips a realism that stood out from the more expressive brushwork of his fellow Bell artists. After the war, Karn relocated to the United States and worked in advertising, and became a member of the Southampton Artists Association.

Katherine Collins (formerly known as Arn Saba) (1947-)Canadian (BC) cartoonist, writer, historian, stage performer, composer and media personality. Creator of Neil the Horse in 1975, published initially in Canadian newspapers for Great Lakes Publishing, and later jumped to comic books (Aardvark-Vanaheim/Renegade Press).Neil was the first all-singing, all-dancing musical comic book, with sheet music included. In 1979, wrote and produced a 5-part documentary series for CBC radio entitled the Continuous Art exploring the cultural impact of comics, featuring interviews with many renowned cartoonists (many of which were published in the Comics Journal). Retired from comics in 1991 after Neil the Horse’s last appearance in Fantagraphics’ Critters #6, although an unpublished Neil the Horse graphic novel is said to exist.